SonoSim’s New Course-Taking Experience

We're committed to continually improving your SonoSim ultrasound education experience. Based on your feedback, we're rolling out a series of enhancements throughout 2025 and 2026 to support personalized learning pathways and expanded integration tools for educators. Our New Course-Taking Experience streamlines course engagement with improved clarity, navigation, and usability. These updates lay the foundation for future customization features, giving learners more control over their education while maintaining a seamless experience for both students and instructors. Watch the video below to see what’s new!

Key Highlights of the New Course-Taking Experience

1. Course Outline Page: Transparency at a Glance

The introduction of the Outline Page offers a clear and structured overview of each course:

• Visual Breakdown: Courses are now segmented into units and lessons, each with estimated time durations. For example, an anatomy refresher lesson might take just a few minutes, while a detailed case study lesson could take longer.
• Better Time Management: Learners can now align their study sessions with the time they have available. For instance, they might choose a shorter activity during a break or save a longer lesson for when they have uninterrupted study time.
• Progress Tracking: Easily identify completed lessons and units, making it simpler to resume learning where you left off.

This design focuses on giving learners a transparent view of their commitments and achievements within each course. 

2. Focused, Modular Learning

The course content is now delivered unit-by-unit, streamlining the learning experience:

• Natural Breaks: Finish a unit and its associated activities before deciding to move on, providing flexibility for learners to take breaks at logical stopping points.
• Simplified Navigation: Move between units effortlessly via a new unit picker or navigational arrows, while retaining access to the full Outline Page when needed.

This shift ensures learners can focus on one topic at a time without feeling overwhelmed by the entire course.

3. Enhanced Usability

We’ve added several features to personalize and improve the SonoSim learning environment:

• Full-Screen Mode: Maximize course media for an immersive experience.
• Transcript Enhancements: Transcripts are now readily available on the course page. They can be repositioned to suit your preference (e.g., placed beside a video for simultaneous viewing).
• Customizable Playback Settings: Learners can toggle autoplay on or off based on their preferences and choose playback speeds, including a newly added 2x speed option for faster review.
• Direct Linking to Pages: Programs can now provide learners with links directly to specific pages within a course, simplifying the assignment of SonoSim content and useful for targeted learning.

4. Progress Visibility and Knowledge Check Tracking

With this update, Knowledge Check scores are saved and displayed for learners. This feature includes:

• Score Retention: Access past scores directly from the Outline Page or the Course Viewer.
• Future Tracking for Admins: Although currently unavailable for admin reports, this feature lays the groundwork for tracking and reporting learners’ scores over time.

Learners can now monitor their performance and revisit areas needing improvement.

Why These Changes Matter

The new course-taking experience is designed with learners in mind, and sets up the platform to support admin-requested features.  This release focuses on:

• Clarity: By breaking down content into units and providing time estimates, learners gain a clear understanding of the scope of their study.
• Flexibility: Modular delivery and saved progress make it easier to fit learning into busy schedules.
• Convenience: With enhanced navigation and usability features, learners can fully focus on mastering ultrasound concepts without unnecessary distractions.

Looking Ahead

These updates are just the beginning. Future enhancements include several significant tools for admins, like building assignments including individual module lessons, lesson-level progress tracking, and expanded reporting tools. We’re committed to making the SonoSim platform even more powerful and instructor- & learner-friendly.

How to Opt-In

The New Course-Taking Experience will be available for opt-in the week of September 15th. You'll be notified when your group is eligible for opt-in via email. Before opting in, please ensure all active in-progress courses are completed. While no data will be lost in reporting, learners who are mid-course when the switch occurs will need to revisit the pages they’ve already viewed to meet the completion requirements. To avoid this type of interruption, we recommend waiting until all active courses are finished before making the switch. 

We will provide ample opportunity to opt in through the end of 2025, but if no action is taken, we will automatically transition all members to the new experience on January 9th.

This opt-in does NOT automatically opt you in for all future enhancements. Stay tuned as we continue to build a SonoSim experience that becomes more robust with each release, while remaining The Easiest Way to Learn & Teach Ultrasonography®.